Aby Rosen is one of the most popular and richest Art Collector who was born on May 16, 1960 in Frankfurt, Frankfurt, United States. Rosen was born in Frankfurt, West Germany in 1960, the son of Jewish Holocaust survivors. His mother Anni spent World War II hiding in a Belgian farmhouse, while his father Isak was held in concentration camps in Germany and Poland. After the war, his mother became a painter and his father a real estate developer. Rosen attended local schools before going to Wolfgang Goethe University, where he graduated with a business degree. His parents moved to Israel by the 1990s, living in Tel Aviv.
In 1991, he founded the partnership RFR Holding LLC with his childhood friend Michael Fuchs (also a son of Holocaust survivors). Although the real estate market was in a downturn at the time, they had access to capital, initially using properties they each owned in Germany as collateral. Later they leveraged their access to German investors. Their strategy was to purchase large, vacant office buildings in need of an upgrade and hire quality architects to refurbish them to high standards. In the 15 years after RFR Holding was established in 1991, Rosen acquired a large portfolio of office buildings, including the Seagram Building, purchased for $375 million from the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association in 2000, and Lever House.
In 2005, Rosen married Dr. Samantha Boardman, a psychiatrist and socialite. Boardman is the daughter of D. Dixon Boardman, who founded the hedge fund Optima Fund Management, and Pauline Pitt, a banking heiress. Boardman graduated from Harvard University and Cornell University medical school. She converted to Judaism. Together, they have had two children Alexander (born 2006) and Vivian (born 2008).
In 2006, Rosen announced plans to develop the site at 610 Lexington Avenue in NYC (situated directly behind the Seagram Building) into a glass hotel and condominium tower to be designed by Sir Norman Foster.
Rosen has been married twice. In 1991, he married Elizabeth Mina Wechsler in a Jewish ceremony at The Pierre in Manhattan. Before their separation in 2000 and divorce in 2004, they had two sons, Gabriel “Gaby” (born 1994) and Charles “Charlie” (born 1996).
